No one would have seen this coming at the 2014 U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
It was that week when Martin Kaymer won his second major event by eight shots over Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton. His win was a massive comeback after several years of struggles and a triumph of epic proportions.
But Friday, some five years later, Kaymer's struggles were back and starker than ever as he missed the cut at the Wyndham Championship and lost his PGA Tour card in the process.
Kaymer shot a 5-over 75 to move to 1 over for the tournament and five shots back of the projected cut at 4 under. By virtue of that finish, he will not qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs and will not make the required 15 starts in a season to maintain his Tour card, according to the Golf Channel.
He has made 14 starts, including the Wyndham Championship.
Martin Kaymer MC at Wyndham and will lose his PGAT card. Five-year exemption from Pinehurst is over, and since he only made 14 starts this season (min. 15) he's likely ineligible for conditional status even if he stays in the top 150.
— Will Gray (@WillGrayGC) August 2, 2019
And with no wins in five years, he has lost all of his exemptions on Tour and will no longer be a full-time PGA Tour member.
Kaymer entered this week the No. 97 ranked player in the world, but according to the Golf Channel, he is unlikely to even receive conditional status from the Tour even if he stays within the top 150 of the world golf rankings.
The German pro has had an up-and-down career. He won a dramatic PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in 2011, where Dustin Johnson now infamously was dealt a two-stroke penalty on the 18th hole for grounding his club on a bunker shot. Kaymer won the event in a playoff over Bubba Watson.
He went on to play incredibly well in the Ryder Cup and even won the aforementioned U.S. Open at Pinehurst. But in the time between those events, he went through a series of swing changes to alter his ball flight which took him from being one of the best players in the world to an afterthought.
He has since fallen off the map and saw his decade-plus long streak of making major championship end a couple of weeks ago when he failed to qualify for the Open Championship by virtue of not being ranked in the top 50 or holding any exemptions.
It's a far fall from grace for a once-dominant golfer, but he has bounced back from spots like this before, so we'll see if the 34-year-old can find his way back to prominence.